PolkPanther's contribution to the Gladiator post was this spin on Tim Donaghy's Deadspin pieces, and it earned a nice ovation. Another commenter took the same angle in that same post, providing an illuminating look at the difference a little extra effort and creativity can make.

AzureTexan earned a round of applause for this excellent, similarly disguised recontextualization in the Clint Dempsey post. By going away from the template and starting the comment with the conversational "by coincidence", AzureTexan adds a layer of personality to the joke that, to me, adds to the humor. And that can also be a little trick a joke-maker can use to build a voice - get away from templates and craft a more stylized presentation.

Norm_De_Plume received an ovation for this Ireland joke in the Rory McIlroy post. It's a terrific way of bringing in that reference, and he, too, went with a conversational style over a more direct presentation. Why is that important? Well, check out the incredibly stupid reply from pink commenter D_McCourt, as well as a puzzlingly dense reply from unstarred commenter njndirish. What they missed is that, by writing it as an utterance and not as a zinger, Norm_De_Plume made a joke out of the wrongheadedness of the fear expressed in the comment, not out of an actual link to the IRA. The punchline is turned cleverly inward, towards the deliver, and not outward, at the subject. I loved this comment. (EDIT: I stupidly included Nine Bill Muellers' contribution among the dumb replies without taking the time to fully consider it. What can I say. Add me to the duds.)

SavetoFavorites dropped this magnificent one-liner in the 360 Riot post, earning a round of applause. This constitutes something of a departure from what we've seen lately from SavetoFavorites; his commenting style has moved steadily in the direction of whimsy and abstract (to my great enjoyment), and perhaps away from this kind of straightforward wordplay. Still, it doesn't surprise me at all to find he can rip off a winner in this kind of format.

Steve_U earned an ovation with this, his second math joke of the day, in the 360 Riot post. That's flexing the old noodle.

Doug Dascenzo's Only Fan had one of the very best comments in the DeShawn Stephenson post with this clever pull, which earned a round of +1s.

I enjoyed this unexpected dig at Jezebel from dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac in the Dilbert post. To tell the truth, I almost always laugh at a Jezebel joke - it touches that "brutalizing an easy target" button that, for whatever reason, reliably cracks me up.

And finally, UweBollocks slayed me with this reply to Steve_U's temporary redaction in the Geriatric Mets Fans post. I don't usually pick replies for either the favorites or duds, but this is just so fucking hilarious. Great job.

Total Fucking Duds

Unstarred commenter Wolfsheim continued his recent backslide with this unnecessary and not-funny offering in the Wake Up Deadspin post. It's a shame, because he looked for the briefest of moments like he might have flipped the switch.

Unstarred commenter FreemanMcNiel also disappointed with this lifeless, lazy Brett Favre joke, also in the Wake Up Deadspin post. The meme is most certainly not dead, but this is obviously a very poor, very lame representation.

Unstarred commenter phillyguy83 couldn't help but do this in the Grantland post. Dude, make jokes. There's no room or need for this crap on Deadspin.

Unstarred commenter damicojw left this in the Jack McKeon post. The original comment is bad - it's not a joke, and it's obviously incorrect. But the follow-up reply is interesting for what it reveals about damicojw's (and probably a great many others') notion of what makes a commenter "star-worthy". It has absolutely nothing to do with a commenter's research or their ability to make cogent arguments or analyses in their comments. The failure of this comment is not that it's incorrect, but rather, that it isn't funny. Featured commenters are those commenters who demonstrate a consistent ability to be funny in their contributions, plain and simple. Rather than worry about the details of your argument or point, skip the argument or point altogether and make everyone laugh. That's the entire ball-game.

Unstarred commenter anomnomnom missed horribly with this cringe-worthy, brutally overcooked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles joke in the Clint Dempsey post. And again, something is revealed at the end about the commenter's generally off-the-mark sense of what makes a good Deadspin comment. It's not (just) that someone else beat him to the idea, it's that anomnomnom's approach to the idea was so incredibly clumsy and heavy-handed and unrefined. Streamline your comments - is this a joke, or is it just me being goofy? Jokes play better. Structure and delivery are important parts of your contributions - don't just settle for the funny idea. Work it into a tight punchline delivery device.

And last but not least, unstarred commenter Its_Jetertastic didthis in the second Godless NBC post, which is a common mistake made by new commenters. Obviously there's a big difference between being funny and delivering funny. The line from Futurama is funny, but the comment is not funny - the comment is the courier who dropped off the line on your doorstep. On Deadspin, you don't ever want your comments to just be the courier. Work at crafting your own original material.

Alrighty. It's 11:15pm and I am dead tired. We're having a significant, ongoing technical issue over here at Mad Bastards All. I hate to keep punching out holes in the fourth wall, but the fact is, you'll probably notice a few things going haywire for a little while, none more-so than the timing of the daily roundups. As soon as things get back into a dependable rhythm around here, the roundups will resume in something like their regular time slot. I do enjoy maintaining this blog and hope you'll all bear with me.

For those who are interested, what follows is the unlinked content of Friday's never-completed roundup. Friday was a great day for commenting, and it was a real shame to have to give up on publishing a list of favorites. Here's the best I can do for now.

Jesus Christ, get your fucking shit together. Don't you understand that we are a group of sad, sad, rapidly aging guys in dead-end jobs desperate for some sense of community, and you blog serves as the validation that, frankly, keeps a lot of us alive. We are lucky Iron Mike is still with us.